Photo: Burrard's Cherry Blossoms

I suppose spring finally has come to Vancouver. On March 31, a day that seemed almost anomalously warm and blue and bright, I got off the SkyTrain early at Burrard Station and wandered into the Cherry Jam Downtown, part of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival - but since I only had a few minutes, I focused more on the cherry blossoms themselves.

This was, I think, the first time I've ever seen them blossoming directly. While you can find them in Toronto, they're somewhat out of the way in High Park. In Vancouver, it's more that you can't miss them. Those hot pink blossoms are practically alien to me - over the last twenty-eight years, my experience taught me that leaves just aren't that color. Sure, I knew about the existence of cherry blossoms, but seeing photographs is totally incomparable with the real thing.

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